Review: BOBBY AND THE CHIMPS at Abbey Theater Of Dublin

“Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind.”

-Albert Einstein

British playwright James Phillips didn’t want to direct INHERIT THE WIND, so he wrote his own version of it.

The play, BOBBY AND THE CHIMPS, made its world premiere on April 3 and runs through April 12 at the Abbey Theater of Dublin (5600 Post Road in Dublin). In some ways, Phillips’ version of the debate of teaching evolution vs. creation is truer to life than its forerunner.

INHERIT THE WIND presents things in black and white. Phillips’ BOBBY AND THE CHIMPS stencils in colors and various shades of gray into the debate.

Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee’s INHERIT THE WIND, a play based on the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial, debuted in 1955 in Dallas. The work pitted the Christian beliefs of the town of Hillsboro, Tenn against schoolteacher Bertram "Bert" Cates, who broke Tennessee law by teaching evolution in his high school classroom.

In BOBBY AND THE CHIMPS is set in Bethlehem, Pa. in 2008. Joseph Bishara directs a stellar cast that is similar and yet different than INHERIT. To make sure evolution stays  in the classroom, Bobby Young (Jeff White) decides to run against conservative Katie Westman (Lindsey Breslin) for a vacant spot on the school board.

White paints Young as a complex, struggling man trying to shoulder his mother’s legacy as well as caring for his struggling wife Amy (Julia Cannell). Cannell brings out the manic swings of Amy, going from having the over-the-top bliss of trying to help her husband research the issues to the bottom-of-the-ocean blues, depending on whether she has or hasn’t taken her medication.

Rachel Scherrer’s captures the essence of Mary Marissa Delaney, who wants what she can’t, or at least shouldn’t, have. From the moment we see her and Bobby talking on stage, the audience senses the undercurrents of their relationship.

Niko Carter portrays the confrontational Jude Holloway with a certain sort of venom, sinking his teeth into his confrontations, whether it be with enemies, friends, or even author Anne Rice. Of the latter, he says mockingly, “She found God, you see, and now will only write for the Lord. In the voice of the Lord. Some second stringer writing in the voice of Jesus Christ, first person?” Everyone has a friend like Jude, and most of us wish we didn’t.

Rounding out the cast for the play are Scott Douglas Wilson (Peter Lahm), Cindy Tran Nguyen (Andrea Lewis), Rusty Wummel (Thomas Wilson), Grace Emmenegger-Conrad (Jamie Hunt), Charles Easley (John Gray) and Alyssa Ryan (Kristen Carter). Whether it is intentional or not, using the names of the key players in the New Testament – Peter, Thomas, John, Jude, Mary and James (okay, technically it’s Jamie but let’s not nitpick) – is an interesting choice.

In his script, Phillips creates the rarest of characters -- a Christian who isn’t insensitively pious, wishy-washy, hypocritical, or Pollyannish. Although she doesn’t appear until the second act, Breslin’s Westman comes across as a true flesh-and-blood character. She makes mistakes but owns up to them; she is wry and funny; and perhaps most important of all, she would have chosen BATMAN with Jack Nicholson over INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE.

Phillips’ script is far more even handed than Jerome and Lee’s. In INHERIT, the evolutionists are stoic with conviction and courage while the creationists are portrayed as ignorant buffoons. Phillips, on the other hand, doesn’t use a paintbrush as large as Lee and Jerome. His evolutionists are not all cut from the same fabric. They range from the confrontational Jude Holloway (Carter) to the pragmatic Thomas Wilson (Wummel). One – Jamie -- even professes to be a believer.

In the first act, Jamie asks Jude, “What do you want Jude, faith to just give up and disappear from the West?”

Jude responds, “Ah Please, please, please.”

Jamie shoots back, “You’re delusional if you think that’s the answer.”

Phillips seems to be saying you need both faith and science to work together instead of pulling each other apart. As he deals with the various struggles in his life, Bobby seems to agree.

Bobby evolves (pardon the pun) to having more of an open mind. “I cannot say that science is the only candle in the dark,” he says in the second act. “I want to say something that will let us live, that however bad it ever gets, there is someone who knew it worse, who had it worse and still said ‘I forgive’, that there is a story that says whatever the facts, the center of the world, the purpose of the world is love.”

Photo Credit: Patrick Doss